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So, KCP&L will give you a free programmable thermostat. They’ll even install it for you.

It’s web-enabled. You can “program it from anywhere you have web access”. You don’t actually connect to the thermostat, though, you connect to the KCP&L website and make the change there and it sends a signal to your thermostat.

Here’s why they’re doing it:

… on just a few of the hottest summer weekdays, we’ll cycle your air conditioner’s compressor on and off to help manage the region’s power demand.

Details from the KCP&L website:

Energy Optimizer participants help control system peak demands during summer months. On the hottest weekday afternoons from May through September, demands on KCP&L’s system are the highest. At these times, we may either raise your temperature a few degrees, or cycle the air conditioning compressor off and on for 15-minute increments for no more than 4 hours.Once thousands of these thermostats are in place, we’ll be able to significantly impact peak demand, thus delaying the need to invest in new generation and keep our rates as low as possible for all customers.

The details about how they actually change your A/C usage:

The outside air conditioning compressor is cycled every 15 minutes:

• Only for 4 hours during the day
• Only on weekdays (Mon – Fri)
• Only during the summer months (May – Sept)
• Never on holidays
• Never on weekends

In 2006, they used this capability 8 times. You can opt out one day a month, so if you’re home sick or something like that, you can make sure your house won’t be super warm on that day.

So, I think this is a super idea. If every home had one of these, it wouldn’t take cycling many A/C units to significantly reduce peak demand. Lower peak => less power plants => cheaper energy. Perhaps we’ll see a trend where all new homes much have a controllable thermostat. It’s rather Big Brother-ish, but the KCP&L website says the communication is one-way only, so they can’t tell what your thermostat is set at, just that it should adjust at certain times.

If you don’t already have a programmable thermostat, this is a perfect chance to get one for free.  Just setting it to be warmer/cooler when you’re not at home during the weekdays can make a tremendous difference for your bill.

The program is called “Energy Optimizer” and you can find more about it at www.kcpl.com/energyoptimizer